First Day of World Conference.

Today, the day that we’ve always looked forward to, was the first day of Every Nation World Conference 2010. Our call time to be at the lobby was 4pm so we basically had a “free” time in the morning. We had prayer at 2:45 and headed down to the lobby at 3:45 and took a shuttle to the SMX convention center. When we got to the SMX we went the Mall of Asia to meet up with the Lipa youth. It was a great time of fellowship and just updating each other on the things that happened between the past 2 days since we left Lipa. It was also a special time because they surprised the birthday celebrants Marvin and Katrina (me! =D). We met up at the SMX convention at 6pm again and headed to our designated seats. It was AMAZING seeing people from different nations come together to worship God and love one another. Our first session started at 7:00 pm and the first speaker was Pastor Grace from Nigeria and the second speaker was Dr. Rice Brookes. Both spoke a message that was beyond powerful and everyone was just in awe of how God moved and we can really tell that God’s presence was so tangible and everyone was able to to grasp it.

thank you for the prayers and encouragement ;D please continue to keep us in prayer! *blessings.

– Sharen Garperio & Katrina Venta

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Day 10 – Last in Lipa City

Today was by far one of the best days here in Lipa City, Philippines. To start off our day, Pastor Ray and Ate Malou invited us to their beautiful home for breakfast & of course the breakfast he prepared was “ma sarap!”

Pastor Ray and Malou have been such a huge blessing to us.  They have imparted to us so much and we are so blessed by their kindness and loving care, not only for us, but for all the people if Lipa.  They have such a big heart and a genuine love for people.  They are such an inspiration to us all.

After breakfast we rode the calabaw (filipino cow). It was nice to get a taste of the country side of the Philippines. Then, we play NERF war with Daniel (Pastor Raymond’s son). He such a bright & awesome kid! To end our stay there, we blessed the family with prayers.

After that we went back to Anfa Hotel to rest until we headed to Mount Malarayat, a hotel in Batangas. So at Mount Malarayat we swam in their big, 4’5 ft deep pool! Its was fun though. So as we left Mount Malarayat we planned a ‘goodbye’ party to have some of our brothers & sister over for our last night here in Lipa City. Despite the rain & typhoon storm, our prayer worked & God brought everyone to the hotel safely. Even thought we didn’t have enough food everyone seemed to have such a great time. Tonight was emotional too! Each one said something about us & it was so thoughtful & loving too!  Like what Kuya Bhadz said “its not goodbye, its until we meet again”. Tomorrow is a big day, gotta get out of this hotel around 12 then head to Manilla. Wish us luck! & a safe drive!

July 18 Last day in Victory church

Today was an awesome day and also our last day in victory church. In the morning service Marvin and Katrina and destiny and erickson pastored to little kids in the kids service. It went really great the kids in the first service really enjoyed (they loved to games and candy that we gave out during the message hahah). Well for destiny and erickson was a tough challenge because the second service the little kids could only understand Tagalog so erickson had to talk Tagalog and destiny had talk slow for the kids but still God worked through the children and everything went great. Later in the afternoon we went to the Tagalog service and they did the song “Lord of All” in Filipino and it was good! we as a team realized we built so much bridges that it will be hard to leave Lipa. the people here are great and you can really tell God worked through them!

Day 9- Prayer Request- Kids Church

Please pray for our youth.  They will be teaching/preaching the Word, organizing games, and doing tithe & offerings for Kids Church for the 9am and 11am service.

Please pray that….

-God would place His words in their mouth to speak.  That they would speak with confidence, authority, and effectiveness.

-Open hearts to receive the teaching on discipleship

-That the kids would have fun and encounter God

Thank you so much!  Love you all 😀

Day 8- Prophetic Presbytery

We started off our day with a powerful time of prayer.  We made sure our hearts were in the right place as we headed into the prophetic presbytery.

It was amazing to see everyone prophesy!  God was definitely in our midst and He allowed us to speak great words of encouragement to the student leaders.  All in all, the presbytery lasted over 3 hours!  It was by God’s grace that He strengthened and empowered us to the presbytery.  Lives were truly touched by Christ and we, as a team, was amazed at how God moved and was able to use us as His mouthpiece.

After the presbytery, we and the LifeBox staff spent time in fellowship over lunch in Robinson’s.  We were so blessed to really get to know them and hear their stories.

We ended the day with a Making Disciples meeting.  In the meeting we were able to meet the student and adult leaders of the church.  They were the ones who are holding down the ministry.  We were blessed to be able to receive and learn how Victory does small groups and One2One.  We were really able to truly catch the heart of the church which is to Honor God and make disciples.

Thats it for now, its getting late and we will be serving in most of the services, so we will post pics tomorrow.

Thank you for all your prayer support, we really appreciate it!

God bless you all 😀

Day 7 – Campus Night

Today was such an amazing day! Our day was filled with mostly preparing for our special performance at Victory church’s Campus Night. Everything went smoothly and we were very anxious for the things that God was going to do.

On average, Victory church has a number of 120 youth that attend their campus nights. After all the outreach we did on the various campuses, God drew in 228 youth! The staff and our team were really amazed.

Everyone on the team had a part for Campus Night. It started off with a game that was hosted by Katrina and Erickson. It went very well and everyone were engaged into the game. After the game, the service started with praise and worship. Micah and Sharen were a part of the worship team and got to experience service from another perspective. The worship time was fun, awesome, overwhelming, and most importantly, the atmosphere was filled with the Holy Spirit! Marvin did an exhortation and most of the students there were very touched by the words he shared about giving everything up to God and trusting Him.  The main speaker was preached by Kuya Joco and it was about discipleship, titled “Am I Coachable?” which is a part of a series called “Coach Me.” After the message, Erickson shared his testimony on how James became his mentor. After the testimony, the team performed the “Everything” skit. People were touched by it and during the alter call, people were crying and surrendering to God. The team was able to pray for individuals at the time. When Campus Night ended, we had small groups and talked about tonight’s message using discussion guides. The people were open to answer the questions and shared about themselves.

Looking back at what God had done tonight is truly remarkable. We’re all so thankful and amazed that God used us to touch so many lives. This is what our faith in God can do 😉

Also, please keep us in prayer that we will have enough strength for tomorrow’s Prophetic Presbytery held at Victory church and for divine healing. Thank you =]

Love, Karen Ramos and Destiny Jean Ranada

Tropical storm status

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give you a heads up that the team is safe and sound after the category 1 “Tropical storm” hit the Philippines.  Here in Lipa we only received a bit of rain and some winds on Wednesday night.  We are all very excited to see God continue to use us in mighty ways here.  Thank you for your prayers and all your concerns.

Blessings